Cambridge

After a summer of disappointing weather, a promising forecast was enough to get me off on a trip down the motorway to a truly fascinating city I''ve only once visited in the past, in the long ago days when one of my brothers-in-law was a student there. Cambridge is not the most accessible place from the north west, but on a very sunny week-end, it was utterly charming and beautiful.

Highlights for my son and me included a river tour on a punt (courtesy of a current undergraduate - it's more than thirty years since I lasted punted and I suspect my technique hasn't improved in the intervening years) and a walk round the superb botanical gardens. We found countless attractive corners, and whilst a couple of days isn't enough to see everything - far from it - we packed a lot into the time available.

Cambridge isn't as well represented in crime fiction as Oxford, and, although I've never attempted a count, I'm sure there are, and have been fewer ex- Cambridge students who have written crime than is the case with Oxford. But this is irrelevant, really, because there are plenty of very good Cambridge-based books. Ostara Publishing (masterminded by Richard Reynolds of Heffers) has published a number of them,and this small press is well worth a look.

Perhaps my favourite Cambridge-based crime novel is a historical mystery, The Anatomy of Ghosts, by Andrew Taylor. Andrew is a gifted writer, one of the finest around, and is confident enough in his own skills to develop a story gradually, eschewing synthetic dramatic tricks that "up the stakes", and relying instead on craft and character (as well as a talent for unorthodoxl plotting) to draw his readers in. This is one of his very best books. Among other first-rate writers who use Cambridge as a setting, I'd highlight the talented and under-estimated Michelle Spring. I've not often mentioned Michelle in this blog, but although far from prolific, she is definitely worth of note.

After Cambridge, we had a fantastic day somewhere else that has occasionally featured in the genre. More of that tomorrow, if time permits....

Andrew Taylor

I’ve mentioned Andrew Taylor and his books several times in this blog. I was reading his crime novels long before I met him – he started his career young, and began with a series featuring the amoral William Dougal that is often described as ‘quirky’. It’s almost a cliché, but it’s still a fair description, because the Dougal books are definitely unusual and different. One of my favourites is The Sleeping Policeman.

As a full-time writer, Andrew has turned his hand to many kinds of projects. He even produced five novels based on the Bergerac TV series, under a pen-name, Andrew Saville. Every now and then he has turned out a stand-alone psychological suspense novel, and my favourite of these is The Barred Window – really good.

His next series was set in the 50s in the fictional Border town of Lydmouth. It features the relationship between a married cop and a female journalist – one book, cleverly, focuses on the story of the cop’s wife. This series began quietly, but the later books are exceptional. I’ve written an article about Thornhill, the cop, which Andrew included on his website, and I mean to update it some day.

The Roth Trilogy is, arguably, his masterpiece. I’ve written about it before on this blog. Suffice to say that it’s one of the most impressive trilogies I’ve come across in crime fiction – a study, going back through time, of the making of a sociopathic killer.

Then there are his historical novels. The American Boy is the best-known, and I reviewed The Anatomy of Ghosts recently. It's shortlisted for the Harrogate Festival award this week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him.

I’d particularly mention Bleeding Heart Square, which is superbly done. He always conveys the atmosphere of the period, and the setting, splendidly, and Bleeding Heart Square has a very good plot and also some resonances with present day Britain. A very good writer, whose work is varied and highly literate. If you don’t know his work, do give it a try.

The Anatomy of Ghosts

I've written before about my enthusiasm for the work of Andrew Taylor. The appearance of another historical mystery from Andrew, The Anatomy of Ghosts, is therefore a real treat. Bleeding Heart Square was one of my favourite crime novels of 2008, and while that book was set in the 1930s, here he writes with equal assurance about murky events in a Cambridge college in the late 18th century.

Taylor's fictional Jerusalem College is splendidly and atmospherically evoked. A map is provided at the start of the book, and it turns out that the layout of the college buildings and grounds is relevant to the unravelling of the mystery. I do like maps in books, and I'm actively thinking of trying to draw one for my next book. Only snag is, I'm not at all artistic...

The book opens in dramatic fashion, with the proceedings of the Holy Ghost Club, a secretive and sinister group based at Jerusalem, and a shocking initiation ritual ends in tragedy and death. Attention then switches to the misadventures of John Holdsworth, who suffers terrible double bereavement when first his young son drowns and then his wife commits suicide. Angered by the fact that his wife had been exploited due to her belief that her son's ghost was seeking to make contact with her, Holdsworth writes The Anatomy of Ghosts, debunking ideas about the spirit world, and comes to the attention of a wealthy woman who dispatches him to Jerusalem College to assess the state of mind of a student who was traumatised by events at the last meeting of the Holy Ghost Club.

The first half of the book is sedate, far removed from the quickfire style of many modern serial killer thriller, but is none the worse for that. Taylor establishes character and setting with equal care, and the period detail is very well done. In the latter stages of the story, the pace quickens and a number of plot threads are pulled together with the dexterity that we have come to expect of this highly accomplished author.